财产保险经济学（英）

Hyeyoon Jung|Jaehoon(Kyle)Jung Economics of Property InsuranceHyeyoon JungandJaehoon(Kyle)JungFederal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports, no.1171November2025https://doi.org/10.59576/sr.1171 Abstract We study the economics of homeowners’property insurance by examining how contractdesign balancesthe trade-off between incentive alignment and risk sharing. Usinggranularcontract-levelpropertyinsurance data merged with property-level disasterrisk for millions of U.S. households, we develop andstructurally estimate a model inwhich insurers optimally determine contract terms given property risk andhouseholdrisk preferences. The estimates provide, to our knowledge, the first large-scale contract-levelstructural measures of risk aversion, risk premia, and the cost of moral hazard,allowing us to quantifyhow disaster risk is allocated between insurers and households.We find that the cost of moral hazard issmall, yet the very mechanism used to mitigateit substantially increases households’exposure to disasterrisk: contract designleaves policyholders exposed to roughly 29 percent of total expected losses. Thisresidualexposure is most pronounced for low-FICO households and for properties withthe greatest tailrisk. Counterfactuals indicate that mandating full insurance wouldlead to substantial market exit,increasing household vulnerability. We further showthat insurers’financial constraints are systematicallycorrelated with the riskiness ofunderwritten properties and with household characteristics. JEL classification:C6, D8, G1, G2, G3Keywords:insurance,financialconstraints,householdfinance,moralhazard,contracting This paper presents preliminary findings and is being distributed to economists and other interestedreaders solely to stimulate discussion and elicit comments. The views expressed in this paper are those ofthe author(s) and do not necessarily reflect theposition of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or theFederal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author(s). 1Introduction Housing is the largest component of household wealth in the US; totaling more than $45trillion. This suggests that, from households’ perspective, property risk is primary, notincidental. Losses from natural disasters are rare but lumpy. Realized damages typicallyfar exceed the liquid savings of many households.1 Insurance is the primary means of hedging these losses.Homeowners’ propertyinsurance is one of the most widely held financial contracts in the household portfolio,comparable in prevalence to checking accounts. US households pay about $150 billion peryear to insure personal property and catastrophe. However, what households actually receive in return for these premiums dependscrucially on the structure of the insurance contract. Property insurance is not a simplepromise to cover the entire loss. Instead, contracts include a deductible, which is theamount the household must pay before the insurer compensates anything, and a coveragelimit, which caps the insurer’s total payout. These terms determine how much of a disasterloss is ultimately borne by the household. Since many households have limited liquidsavings, the extent to which a disaster is financially smoothed through insurance versuspassed through to the households’ balance sheet is a critical matter for household financialstability. Contract design therefore plays a central role in the financial consequences ofdisasters, both at the household level, in shaping risk exposure and recovery, and atthe macro level, by influencing how local shocks transmit into housing markets, creditoutcomes, and aggregate economic activity. These contract features arise from a fundamental risk-sharing versus incentive trade-off.In a frictionless setting, insurers, who are diversified and thus effectively risk-neutral,would provide full insurance to risk-averse households against property losses. In practice, however, insurers cannot observe the effort households take to maintain or protect theproperty once insured. This classic moral hazard problem can be mitigated by exposingpolicyholders to residual risk through deductibles and coverage limits. In this paper, we study three key questions about the economics of homeowners’ prop-erty insurance contracts. First, how are insurance contracts designed in practice—specifically,how do premiums, deductibles, and coverage limits relate to underlying property riskand insurer pricing? Second, how large is moral hazard in homeowners insurance, and towhat extent do cost-sharing terms mitigate it? Third, how much risk is ultimately retainedby households as a result of contract design, and how does this retained risk vary acrosshouseholds and insurers? These questions are important because contract design determines how disaster lossesare allocated between insurers and households, with implications for household financialresilience and for how shocks propagate more broadly. However, surprisingly little isknown abo